1925 'Pat Pending' Satirical Blueprint for a Goat Powered Torpedo

Goat Powered Torpedo.

This is a 1925 satirical cyanotype engineering diagram of a goat-powered torpedo, signed with the pseudonym 'Pat Pending'. Presented as a sectional drawing with an accompanying technical explanation, it replaces a conventional propulsion system with a weeping goat, an onion, and an elaborate treadmill mechanism. The joke depends on the convincing framework surrounding its impossible machinery: labeled components, compartmentalized construction, and instructions delivered with unshakable professional confidence. Even the blueprint medium participates in the deception, presenting an absurd invention in the familiar working format of an engineering office.

A Closer Look

The torpedo extends across the sheet in longitudinal section, with its warhead at left and propellers at right. Between them, bulkheads, shaft supports, and carefully drawn gears surround a wide-eyed goat wearing a derby hat. The warhead contains a Copenhagen snuff bursting charge, while the machinery includes a tear-catching funnel, a sal-ammoniac pin, a spring-loaded prodder, and an asbestos treadmill. These incongruous materials and components receive the same matter-of-fact treatment as the propeller shaft and gear train, letting the reader follow the drawing as if it were a practical design.

The accompanying explanation supplies an elaborate sequence of operations, beginning with launch and ending with the goat throwing its hat into the gears. Mechanical vocabulary repeatedly gives way to bodily comedy: the prodder engages the animal's port quarter, and a spur gear becomes a literal spur against its back. The author's final appeal to the authority of 'any torpedo expert' completes the parody. The instructions read:

The torpedo is made in three sections, the head, the midship section and the after body. The drawing shows the mechanism at rest. The operation is as follows: When the torpedo is fired from the tube the trigger comes in contact with a lug which causes the trigger arm to displace the cobble which falls on the Bermuda onion and crushes it. The onion gases thus released cause the goat to weep copiously. The tears are caught in the funnel on the top of the sal-ammoniac pin. These tears dissolve the sal-ammoniac pin. Thereby releasing the spring rod and prodder. This unit moves smartly forward, engaging the port quarter of the goat, thereupon the goat steps out and operates the asbestos treadmill, which is connected to the gear train that operates the propellers. A gaff and boom rig operated by the gear train operates a spur gear which revolves rapidly on the goat's back guaranteeing the continuance of the motion started by the goat prodder, the derby on the goat prevents him from catching cold while the torpedo is in the tube. It is obvious that if he should catch cold he would be rendered useless as an onion weeper. The hat also serves as a cut-off in the following manner: after a certain speed has been attained the goat has a desire to take off his hat and be comfortable, so he therefore tosses it to the rear where it falls in the gear train and jams it. Any torpedo expert will explain this to you if the above elucidation is not perfectly clear.

The technical presentation suggests an audience familiar with engineering drawings and naval terminology. Cyanotype reproduction reinforces that reading: by the 1880s, the process had become a primary means of copying plans in drawing offices, making its use here integral to the satire.

A Goat Island Connection?

The goat likely alludes to Goat Island in Newport, Rhode Island, where the U.S. Navy established its Naval Torpedo Station in 1869. The station investigated propulsion systems, explosives, and related equipment before becoming a torpedo-manufacturing and research center in the first half of the 20th century. That mix of research and production makes it an especially fitting setting for a joke about an ingenious but unworkable propulsion system, though the sheet offers no explicit link to the station.

The date also places the drawing alongside a consequential development at Newport. A Navy photograph records the Mark 11 torpedo at the Newport factory in 1925, identifying it as the first all-Navy torpedo design. The present sheet's mock designation, Mark XVIII Model XIV 1925 Weeping Goat Type Torpedo. is a clear allusion.

Cyanotype: Why so Blue

Cyanotype is a photo-reprographic technique developed in 1842 by the British astronomer John Herschel (1792 - 1871). Sometimes called a 'sunprint', the technique uses a solution of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide that, when painted on white paper or cloth, reacts to sunlight, dyeing the object a brilliant blue. Areas blocked from ultraviolet exposure remain undyed and white. Herschel developed the technique to reproduce his astronomical notes, but others quickly realized that any light-blocking object could create a cyanotype image quickly and easily. By the late 19th century, designers, the military, architects, and engineers (blueprints) had adopted the process, using the cheap, effective technique to reproduce images quickly and accurately in the field. Cyanotyping is limited because it produces only a single copy at a time, so it was practical only for short-term field work. Untreated cyanotypes also remain highly light-sensitive and, over time, fade or degrade, making them ephemeral. The process fell out of fashion in most places by the 1920s but remains in use in some parts of the world, such as India and Nepal, to this day.

Publication History

The sheet bears the date 1925 within its title and the signature 'Pat Pending' at lower right, a pun on patent pending that extends the conceit of a proposed invention. It identifies no publisher or place of production. The maker is unknown, but in spirit, though not in execution, it resembles the contemporaneous work of William Heath Robinson (1872 - 1944).

Condition

Very good. Pinholes in corners.

References

Ware, Mike, 'A Blueprint for Conserving Cyanotypes', Topics in Photographic Preservation, vol. 10 (2003), pp. 2 - 18. Naval History and Heritage Command, NH 82840 (contextual photograph of the Mark 11 torpedo).